Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint about the Council wrongly making the complainant liable for council tax. This is because the Council has provided a fair response and there is not enough remaining injustice to require an investigation.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Mrs X, says the Council keeps making her wrongly liable for council tax. She wants compensation.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start an investigation if we believe:

• the Council has provided a fair remedy, or
• the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I read the complaint and the Council’s responses. I asked the Council for information about how many times the error has occurred. I considered comments Mrs X made in response to a draft of this decision.

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What I found

What happened

4. Mrs X has links with about 11 properties. For some properties she is listed as the landlord and for others she is listed as the managing agent.
5. In 2019 the Council sent a council tax bill to Mrs X because the tenant had told the Council she was leaving. The Council issued the bill in May. After Mrs X contacted the Council in June, with updated information, the Council amended the account.
6. In February 2020 the Council wrongly made Mrs X liable for the council tax for one of the properties for which she is the agent. The error occurred because the Council ticked the wrong box and made the agent liable rather than the landlord. The error meant Mrs X was wrongly made liable for the council tax. Mrs X sent an on-line form to say this was incorrect. The Council corrected the error on the same day. Mrs X did not incur any costs or pay any council tax for that property. The Council has apologised and spoken to the officer who made the mistake.
7. Mrs X wants compensation because she says she has to keep filling out forms to correct the Council’s errors.

Assessment

8. I will not start an investigation for the following reasons.
9. The Council made a mistake in 2020 and wrongly made Mrs X liable for the council tax. But, it has provided a fair remedy by apologising, explaining what went wrong and speaking to the officer to stop the mistake from happening again. The incident in 2019 does not appear to be a Council error but rather a case of the Council updating the records when it received more information.
10. I also will not start an investigation because, once the remedy is taken into account, there is not enough remining injustice to require an investigation. Mrs X has not paid any council tax that she was not liable for and she has not incurred any costs. In addition, anyone who is a managing agent or a landlord can expect to spend some time dealing with the properties. Mrs X had to fill in a form and the Council immediately corrected the liability. This does not reflect undue time and trouble which requires compensation.
11. Mrs X says the error could have happen again. This is correct because no council can guarantee never to make an error. But, the Ombudsman remedies injustice that has occurred and does not intervene on the basis that someone might be caused an injustice in the future.

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Final decision

12. I will not start an investigation because the Council has provided a fair remedy and because there is not enough remaining injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman